Aversion to rape is generally worse than rape itself
Rape originated as a crime against property and community values, not a crime against a person. Today, rape is considered to be a terrible thing by most of the peoples of the world. Why so? For some elites, because it’s a crime against sexual self-determination. However, for most people the emotional aspects of rape-related indignation haven’t changed so much through the years – and that’s much worse than rape itself.
Unthinking gut-feeling aversion to rape is worse than rape itself (and makes rape itself worse) if it depends on a family/community idea of sexual management, because then it presupposes the property view that family and community have rights over individuals’ (especially women’s) sexuality. Such rights are not ordained by law, but they exist in practice: education makes them effective.
Rape is one of the least reported crimes in the world because rape victims implicitly consider community aspects of the offence worse than personal ones, and that’s the reason why rape is commonly considered a more serious offence then the sum of violence and coercion that it’s constituted of.
So, rape is not the core problem. The persistence of traditional sexual values is the core problem.
